“No, I couldn’t. Her status protects her. I’d forfeit everything I’ve won if I destroyed her.”
Vampire politics. I didn’t care anymore. I had work to do. “Rick, there’s a problem. Detective Hardin’s people have pictures of Dack at the Brown Palace—”
“What?” Rick said. He still had Arturo’s ashes smudged all over him. My stomach turned, and I swallowed back bile.
I said, “They went over security footage from the hotel and found pictures of Dack going to see her. I think he’s been telling her and Arturo everything. He’s your spy. It makes total sense—she knew your people were at the warehouse and told Arturo, she told Dack to call 911 so when the police came breathing down Arturo’s neck he’d need her help to get the situation back under control. He even saved you because she wanted you alive to put more pressure on Arturo.”
Rick didn’t react right away. His gaze turned to Arturo’s chair. His expression was impassive. Then, all he did was whisper, “Not Dack. I don’t believe it.”
“You want me to go get the pictures? What else would he be doing there?”
He turned away, giving his head a shake, a harsh movement when I was used to seeing nothing but grace from him. “Damn,” he murmured.
“Where is he?” I asked. “Is he here? How much does he know about what we planned? And Ben was supposed to come find you—”
He pursed his lips in a wry smile. “Dack’s not here.”
“Then where is he?”
“I sent him and Ben to go after Carl and Meg.” His voice was bitter. He lowered his gaze.
I could only stare at him, frozen. More than numb. The words he’d spoken sent the world crumbling apart around me, and my blood hummed in my ears.
“You’ve killed him,” I said starkly. “Dack’s taking him into a trap. They’ll tear him apart.” Unless Shaun and Becky’s friend Mick was out there, and if anyone else was out there who could save him, and if Carl and Meg hadn’t already killed them all. Too many ifs. They might all be dead.
“I knew—I believed you wouldn’t be able to face Carl and Meg. Part of you still sees them as dominant over you. There’s too much history between you. Ben agreed with me. So he and Dack went after Carl and Meg without you. It seemed like the right thing to do. They were supposed to take care of it while I faced Arturo. We’d finish it all in a night.” He’d become emotionless, his voice monotone. If I punched him now he’d probably stand there and take it.
He didn’t have that right, to decide I couldn’t face my old alphas. He didn’t know me, didn’t know what drove me. Neither he nor Ben had the right to make that decision. To take that away from me. The mess they’d created because of that might very well be irreparable. I didn’t know which of them I was more angry at.
Time enough for getting pissed off later.
“Rick. We have to go after them. Now.”
“It’s almost dawn. I can’t. Kitty, Ben’s strong, he’s resourceful. Maybe he’s okay—”
“Like hell! One man against the three of them? When it’s probably a trap?”
“I’m sorry,” he said, sounding small, surprisingly young.
“Give me your keys.” I held out my hand. “Your car, give me the keys now.”
“It’s too dangerous by yourself. Find someone to go with you—”
All I could think about was finding Ben. “Just give me the keys.”
He did, pulling them out of his pocket and tossing them to me. I was on my way to the door as soon as I caught them. I still had my backpack, which had everything I needed.
“Kitty—”
I didn’t turn around.
In the corridor, I nearly ran into Charlie and Violet. They were carrying inert vampires into the lair. Stella, unconscious, her face thick with hives, was among them. Charlie said Rick hadn’t wanted any of the vampires killed. I understood now: they had been Arturo’s. Rick had taken Arturo into himself, and now they were Rick’s, and Charlie and Violet were bringing them underground before dawn. Rick hadn’t wanted to waste any of his potential followers.
Right now, it would be easy to see him as conniving and selfish as the rest, ready to sacrifice anyone.
“Hey, Kitty, a little help here?” Charlie said. I walked right past him. “Hey!”
I ignored him. I could only think of the car, the road, the route to Meg and Carl’s house, where Dack must have taken Ben. My Ben.
Outside, the sky was lightening—twilit blue on the edge of gray. Rick was right—dawn was close. I hadn’t realized how much time had passed. How much time had passed since Dack and Ben went after Carl and Meg? How long ago had they killed him?
The alley behind Obsidian was broken by many sets of flashing red and blue lights. Ambulances, police cars. EMTs were checking out Kramer. A couple of cops were putting up yellow tape around the whole parking lot. A couple, wearing latex gloves and carrying crime scene equipment, crouched by Sawyer. Investigating. Hardin was near one of the ambulances, nursing a cigarette and talking on a phone.
I walked past them all.
“Kitty!” Hardin called. “Hey, Kitty—”
I jumped into Rick’s car and drove. Had to drive fast, focused. I knew the route, I knew what waited for me.
The sports car was unlike anything I’d ever driven. Little seemed to separate me from the pavement; the car was low, the tires humming, and it responded to the tiniest touch. A hair-thin turn of the steering wheel had me zipping around corners. The barest press of the gas pedal made the car shoot ahead. I never even looked at the speedometer to see how fast I was going. The world scrolled past me. This time of night—of morning—I had no traffic to contend with. The feeling was close to running free, on four legs, over open, unbroken country, the wind drawing fingers through the fur on my body.
I am a hunter. I will stalk them and strike.
I shook my head and refocused, because for a moment my vision had wavered and gone gray. For a moment I’d seen the world in wolf tones. Had to stay human. Wolf couldn’t drive the freaking car.
Or hold the gun.
chapter 16
The sky was pale now. Take care of him, Cormac had said. Keep him out of trouble. How would I ever be able to face him again? What would I say? I’d gotten Ben killed. I wiped tears from my face.
How was I going to keep going without Ben?
No time for that. I am a hunter. I can already taste their blood. My mouth waters for it. I let that part of Wolf edge into my mind. Our territory, our mate, they can’t do this to us.
We’ve learned to fight. We’ll show them. Or die trying.
They lived at the edge of town, near the foothills, on a chunk of land with a backyard that opened to wilderness. This was the heart of their territory. The pack came here to run on full moon nights. Even if they weren’t at their house, they’d be around here. I was betting Dack knew exactly where. Ben and Dack would have gone here to find Carl and Meg, and Carl and Meg would draw Ben here to kill him. I knew this as if I had smelled their trail the whole way.
Carl’s truck was in the driveway, but the house was dark, like no one was home. But it was also the crack of dawn, so who knew. An unmarked sedan sat half a block away; someone in the front seat was sipping coffee and looking bored—Hardin’s stakeout. I drove another couple of blocks. There, on the street outside a state park trailhead, Ben’s car was parked.
My heart lurched and a new wave of nausea struck me. Like morning sickness, like a miscarriage. Impending death, settling in my gut.
I passed Ben’s car and drove a few yards farther, peering through the cottonwoods to the open field beyond, hoping to spot something, looking for signs that they were near. Couldn’t see anything. I’d have to go looking for them. I stopped, shut off the car, and reached for my bag.
If you need to kill someone, make sure the thing’s loaded. That was what he’d said. I remembered all his instructions, like he was standing behind my shoulder, whispering to me. I could feel his arms around me, guiding my own.
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I popped the clip. Full up, bullets gleaming silver. Slid it back into place and chambered a round.
Sure didn’t take long to get into this gun thing, did it? I wished it were over so I could curl up and be sick. But the Wolf whispered, I am a hunter.
The world wavered to gray again. It was the dawn, it was the Wolf’s sight. It drove me on. Steadied me. Could only think of one thing now: them, and death.
“Rick? Rick, what are you doing here?” Dack came through the stand of cottonwoods, walking toward the street. He saw the BMW, recognized it, assumed.
My first catch.
I stepped out of the car. Thank God the BMW was low to the ground—I could actually look over it without appearing ridiculous.
“Rick’s not a morning person. You know that,” I said.
Dack froze, and his eyes grew round. He hadn’t expected to see me. Absolutely hadn’t expected to see me.
“Where’s Rick?” he said carefully.
“The basement of Obsidian.”
“What—”
“Arturo’s gone. Rick’s ordered Mercedes out of town. And we know all about you.” I rested the gun on the roof of the car. “You should have sided with the strongest vampire.”
He ran. Didn’t even hesitate. Flat out sprinted toward Ben’s car. Quickly—belatedly—I raised the gun and fired. Squeezed the trigger, and again, and both times the weapon jumped in my hand. Forgot Ben’s whispering voice, everything he taught me. Didn’t hit Dack—one of the trees shredded splinters, where I accidentally shot it instead. By then Dack had safely climbed into Ben’s car and had lurched it around in a U-turn to drive away.
Son of a bitch had stolen Ben’s keys.
Ben.
I let Dack go and ran to the trees. Did some quick math—fired twice, fifteen rounds, thirteen left. Should be enough. If I could keep my aim straight, I only needed two. I followed my nose.
There they stood, in a field on the other side of the cottonwoods, out of view of the street. All three of them. Ben was on his feet—but Carl was holding him there, standing behind him, wrenching both his arms back and pinning him immobile so Meg could torture him. Blood covered her, spattering her face and soaking her clothing. She was letting her wolf slide to the fore, and her hands had turned to claws. She had been slashing at Ben. I was twenty paces away, but I could make out wounds. He had cuts, parallel lines across his cheeks and across his neck as if someone with claws had grabbed him there and squeezed. His shirt was shredded, dripping with blood.
She had been taking him apart, piece by piece, while Carl held him still.
I painted this scene by inference, because they had paused. Meg had taken a few steps away from Ben—probably drawn by the sound of gunfire, trying to decide whether to go see what was wrong.
I wanted to watch Ben, find some sign that he was moving, that he was going to be all right, that they hadn’t gone too far and that his injuries wouldn’t kill him. We were less than a mile from where T. J. had died, after Carl ripped out his heart. I couldn’t watch that again. I couldn’t take that happening again. It was all I could do not to scream in agony.
Meg saw me and snarled. Beyond words.
Dack had delivered him, and they were dealing with him. Then, Ben’s keys in hand, Dack was probably leaving to go get me, lure me out here on some pretense. Maybe he’d say he’d help me rescue Ben. That had probably been part of their deal with Arturo—Carl and Meg could keep the pack, but they had to get rid of me and Ben. Or maybe it had been Mercedes’s idea. Like Rick, we were too independent, too much trouble. She sent her minion to get rid of us.
They’d planned on killing the three of us—me, Ben, and Rick—the same night we planned on killing them. It had all come down to who got there first.
I had a flash: all the things I could say to Meg, all the mercy I could show her—stop, get away from him, don’t make me do this. Get out of Denver, you get the same deal Carl gave me, go away and never return.
She moved toward me, her bloodied hands clenched, shoulders tight like hackles, and I sensed the attack she was about to make—the tensing muscles, the quickening stride. I stood my ground. She was so fixated, so high on adrenaline and victory, she didn’t see the gun I held at my side, behind my thigh, out of sight.
She thought she had the power here, but she didn’t. That knowledge gave me strength.
This time, I was calm, and Ben’s instructions whispered at me. Take a breath. Hold the gun in both hands. Aim. Exhale slowly. It only took a second. Her eyes registered a moment of surprise. She hadn’t expected to see a weapon.
I aimed for her head. Fired. Fired again.
One bullet hit her shoulder, another her chest, sending out sprays of blood. She spun back and fell. Didn’t even cry out.
Carl ducked, flattening himself on the ground. Released, Ben fell beside him—not moving. I choked on a cry.
Meg writhed on the ground. I kept my distance. The gun was warm in my hand. I held it straight before me, sighting down the barrel. The wounds hadn’t killed her. I’d have to finish it. I didn’t want to have to do this, please, God, don’t make me do this . . .
Then, she wailed. Seized by pain, she arced her back, flung out her arms, clutching at the grass. Her head tipped back, and her mouth opened wide, screaming. I smelled something—ill and rotten, it came from her, growing until it vied with her normal human-wolf scents. The wounds didn’t smell just of blood. Sickness oozed there, too, something sour and burning, growing to be overpowering.
I stepped closer.
Meg didn’t notice. All her muscles clenched, pulling her body into a trembling, fetal form. The wounds, marked by bloody splatters, had blackened. The veins in her neck had blackened, showing the trail of poison carried from the wounds by her bloodstream. In another moment the searing trails of silver poisoning traced down both her arms, into her face. Under her clothing, they would soon mark out her whole body.
She stopped shaking. Her eyes and mouth had frozen open, and her fingers remained tensed in the shape of claws. They were only fingers now, harmless, and covered with blood.
“Oh, my God,” breathed Carl. I turned to look at him, and he scuttled away from me. Afraid of me. I wasn’t even pointing the gun at him.
Oh, this moment was a long time coming.
Moving toward him, I raised the gun, aimed it. I forced myself to step slowly, exhibiting calm, exhibiting power, when all I really wanted to do was throw myself to the ground at Ben’s side. Or let Wolf come out and rip into Carl. I could almost feel his blood on my tongue.
Ben moved, starting to sit up—alive. He was alive. He clenched his jaw, grit his teeth, bent over in the wracked pose that meant he was fighting his wolf, trying to keep from shifting. All that pain and anger called his wolf up, and he was fighting it. I couldn’t go help him yet.
On his feet now, Carl was still backing away.
“Kitty,” he said, his voice sounding different than I’d ever heard it. Tighter. Higher. Fearful. Close to panic. “Don’t . . . don’t do this. I know you don’t want to do this. Kitty.”
Behind him, something moved in the scrub, where trees started growing at the base of the hills. A wolf, moving in from the wild, trotted toward us. Then another. These were large—too big to be wild wolves. These were wolves that conserved the mass of their human halves—a hundred fifty, two hundred pounds maybe. Big, but still lithe, trotting smoothly and with purpose.
Behind them came a person—a woman, naked, flexing her muscles, her arms and hands, in a familiar gesture. She was about to shift.
I took a deep breath, trying to scent a nonexistent breeze, catching what odors the morning air carried. The pack. This place always smelled like pack—this is where they gathered, where they made their home. But this smell was alive, not a passive scent left behind on a place. The pack was here, now.
I ventured a look around. On all sides of us, people approached. I counted four, then six, then nine, and more. Shaun was one of them, coming
from the street. He gave me a nod of acknowledgment. They weren’t all dead. They’d found us.
Carl saw them, then. For just a moment, a hairsbreadth of a moment, he smiled, almost relaxed—he thought he was saved, that his pack would rescue him.
But they weren’t his pack anymore, and they all moved toward him. Their glares held malice. In return for the abuse he’d handed out, on behalf of the ones he had killed, they wanted blood.
Carl’s expression turned to panic.
He raised his hands in a pleading gesture. “Kitty, no, no, please! I’ll leave. I’ll leave Denver, I won’t come back. It’ll be yours, it’ll all be yours.”
“It’s already mine,” I said.
His face went slack, as if the muscles gave out. The wolves, on two and four feet, came closer.
“Please let me go, Kitty.” He sounded like a little boy. “I’ll never bother you again.”
My mouth was dry. But I had to see this through. I couldn’t turn away. “You’ll leave Denver, never come back?” I said. “Same deal you gave me?”
He nodded quickly. “Yes, yes!”
A dozen monsters wanted his blood.
“I’m sorry, Carl. That’s not for me to decide.”
The pack closed the circle around him. A wolf clamped teeth around his waist, another raked claws down his back.
Carl screamed and started to Change. His wolf had sensed the danger and had clawed its way to the surface. His face stretched, growing a snout. His reaching arms bore claws, his skin shone with fur. But it was too late. The others were too many and too strong. They overwhelmed him, swallowed him in their crowd. I lost sight of him, but still heard him. His screams came fast and desperate, turning high-pitched and squealing, like the wailing of a dog, then gurgled to silence. They tore him apart.
I dropped the gun and ran to Ben.
“Ben! Ben, hold on, please—”
“Kitty!”
Already sitting up, he fell into my arms. We clung to each other, as if afraid of drowning.
My arms tight around him, his blood soaking into my clothes, smearing on my face, I kept saying, sobbing, over and over, “Don’t die, don’t leave me, don’t ever leave me.”